Law Commons^™

Evolving Autonomous Vehicle Technology And The Erosion Of Privacy, Raquel Toral

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property, Persons, And Institutionalized Police Interdiction In Byrd V. United States, Eric J. Miller

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

During a fairly routine traffic stop of a motorist driving a rental car, two State Troopers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, discovered that the driver, Terrence Byrd, was not the listed renter. The Court ruled that Byrd nonetheless retained a Fourth Amendment right to object to the search. The Court did not address, however, why the Troopers stopped Byrd in the first place. A close examination of the case filings reveal suggests that Byrd was stopped on the basis of his race. The racial feature ofthe stop is obscured by the Court’s current property-basedinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment’s right to privacy.

Although …

Perceptions, Knowledge And Experiences Among Police Officers: Traffic Stops, Vehicle Searches And K-9 Involvement, Daniel Ozment

Master of Science in Criminal Justice Theses & (Pre-2016) Policy Research Projects

This survey study explores the perceptions, knowledge and experiences of police “line” officers concerning Fourth Amendment search and seizure norms and applications during traffic stops and vehicles searches, in particular police use of canine units following the landmark United States Supreme Court decision of Rodriguez v. United States. In particular, the study examines issues surrounding the length and scope of a traffic stop by police, including stops with canine involvement. Finally, the study includes an analysis of how federal courts of appeal and Georgia courts have interpreted the Rodriguez decision.

A Cognitive Theory Of The Third-Party Doctrine And Digital Papers, H. Brian Holland

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly 200 years, an individual’s personal papers enjoyed near-absolute protection from government search and seizure. That is no longer the case. With the widespread adoption of cloud-based information processing and storage services, the third-party doctrine operates to effectively strip our digital papers of meaningful Fourth Amendment protections.

This Article presents a new approach to reconciling current third-party doctrine with the technological realities of modern personal information processing. Our most sensitive data is now processed and stored on cloud computing systems owned and operated by third parties. Although we may consider these services to be private and generally secure, the …

From Storefront To Dashboard: The Use Of The Americans With Disabilities Act To Govern Websites, Kelby S. Carlson

Catholic University Law Review

The question of the effects of technological change on the interpretation of statutes is a complicated one. Particularly for statutes that govern a broad range of issues, the advent of new technology can precipitate re-examination of the rationale behind, and nature of, the relevant law. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted, in part, to give Americans with disabilities greater access to public space, allowing them to enjoy the advantages such access offers on an equal footing with the able-bodied. The adoption of digital technology across society and, in particular, the widespread ubiquity of the internet now raise questions about …

Chilling: The Constitutional Implications Of Body-Worn Cameras And Facial Recognition Technology At Public Protests, Julian R. Murphy

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In recent years body-worn cameras have been championed by community groups, scholars, and the courts as a potential check on police misconduct. Such has been the enthusiasm for body-worn cameras that, in a relatively short time, they have been rolled out to police departments across the country. Perhaps because of the optimism surrounding these devices there has been little consideration of the Fourth Amendment issues they pose, especially when they are coupled with facial recognition technology (FRT). There is one particular context in which police use of FRT equipped body-worn cameras is especially concerning: public protests. This Comment constitutes the …

Flagrant Police Abuse: Why Black Lives (Also) Matter To The Fourth Amendment, Joelle A. Moreno

Joelle A. Moreno

No abstract provided.

The Futile Fourth Amendment: Understanding Police Excessive Force Doctrine Through An Empirical Assessment Of Graham V. Connor, Osagie K. Obasogie, Zachary Newman

Northwestern University Law Review

Graham v. Connor established the modern constitutional landscape for police excessive force claims. The Supreme Court not only refined an objective reasonableness test to describe the constitutional standard, but also held that the Fourth Amendment is the sole avenue for courts to adjudicate claims that police violated a person’s constitutional rights in using force. In this Essay, we ask: What impact did this decision have on the nature of police excessive force claims in federal courts? To address this, we engaged in a qualitative examination of 500 federal cases (250 in the twenty-six years before Graham and 250 in the …

Lacking Regulated Policy For Dna Evidence, Maia Lister

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Despite its strong presence in criminal justice, DNA analysis is still a minimally regulated area. This minimal regulation devalues DNA evidence through the inconsistencies in these areas. The analysis methods of low template DNA lack a uniform method resulting in varying levels of reliability. Utilizing familial searches to assist in criminal investigations can potentially violate citizen rights. Such violations can also be found in the collection of DNA samples before an arrestee is tried or convicted. There are, however, regulations that could be applied universally to combat the problems that were discussed.

Is Your Smartphone Conversation Private? The Stingray Device’S Impact On Privacy In States, Katherine M. Sullivan

Catholic University Law Review

“Where are you” is a common question to receive on your cellphone, but it is up to you whether or not to respond with an answer. No longer does this question need to be asked due to advancements in surveillance technology. When pinpointing a criminal suspect, the question can be answered by local and state agencies, without the person of interest knowing, by using a StingRay device. The main question to be asked is does the conduct of locating a criminal suspect’s exact location without a warrant, violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. …

Hernandez V. Mesa: Preserving The Zone Of Constitutional Uncertainty At The Border, Alexandra A. Botsaris

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Implications Of The Private Search Doctrine In A Digital Age: Advocating For Limitations On Warrantless Searches Through Adoption Of The Virtual File Approach, Brianna M. Espeland

Idaho Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fourth Amendment Constraints On The Technological Monitoring Of Convicted Sex Offenders, Ben A. Mcjunkin, Jj Prescott

Law & Economics Working Papers

More than forty U.S. states currently track at least some of their convicted sex offenders using GPS devices. Many offenders will be monitored for life. The burdens and expense of living indefinitely under constant technological monitoring have been well documented, but most commentators have assumed that these burdens were of no constitutional moment because states have characterized such surveillance as “civil” in character — and courts have seemed to agree. In 2015, however, the Supreme Court decided in Grady v. North Carolina that attaching a GPS monitoring device to a person was a Fourth Amendment search, notwithstanding the ostensibly civil …

Self Incrimination And Cryptographic Keys, Gregory S. Sergienko

Greg Sergienko

Modern cryptography can make it virtually impossible to decipher documents without the cryptographic key thus making the availability of the contents of those documents depend on the availability of the key. This article examines the Fourth and Fifth Amendments' protection against the compulsory production of the key and the scope of the Fifth Amendment immunity against compelled production. After analyzing these questions using prevailing Fourth and Fifth Amendment jurisprudence, I shall describe the advantages of a privacy-based approach in practical and constitutional terms. [excerpt]

Policing The Prosecutor: Race, The Fourth Amendment, And The Prosecution Of Criminal Cases, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

As this article explores, while the Fourth Amendment is commonly criticized for the discretion it affords police officers, an overlooked result of the amendment’s lax regulation of the police is the enhanced power it affords prosecutors. Though for a time a warrant was the notional measure of reasonableness, over the last century the Court has crafted several exceptions to that measure to give the police greater leeway during on-the-street encounters. The Court has concurrently retreated from robust application of the exclusionary rule to remedy constitutional violations. These shifts have meant far more predictable wins for the prosecution at the suppression …

County Of Los Angeles V. Mendez: Defending The Constitutionality Of The "Provocation Rule", Layla Bishara

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Irrelevance: The Court’S Abdication In Criminal Procedure Jurisprudence, Tonja Jacobi, Ross Berlin

Faculty Articles

Criminal procedure is one of the Supreme Court’s most active areas of jurisprudence, but the Court’s rulings are largely irrelevant to the actual workings of the criminal justice system. The Court’s irrelevance takes two forms: objectively, on the numbers, its jurisprudence fails to protect the vast majority of people affected by the criminal justice system; and in terms of salience, the Court has sidestepped the major challenges in the United States today relating to the criminal justice system. These challenges include discrimination in stops and frisks, fatal police shootings, unconscionable plea deals, mass incarceration, and disproportionate execution of racial minorities. …

Licensed To Kill? An Analysis Of The Standard For Assessing Law Enforcement's Criminal Liability For Use Of Deadlly Force, Raoul Shah

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Cybersurveillance Intrusions And An Evolving Katz Privacy Test, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

To contextualize why a new approach to the Fourth Amendment is essential, this Article describes two emerging cybersurveillance tools. The first Cybersurveillance tool, Geofeedia, has been deployed by state and local law enforcement. Geofeedia uses a process known as "geofencing" to draw a virtual barrier around a particular geographic region, and then identifies and tracks public social media posts within that region for predictive policing purposes. The second tool, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), is under development by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FAST is another predictive policing tool that analyzes physiological and behavioral signals with the …

Bulk Biometric Metadata Collection, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

Smart police body cameras and smart glasses worn by law enforcement increasingly reflect state-of-the-art surveillance technology, such as the integration of live-streaming video with facial recognition and artificial intelligence tools, including automated analytics. This Article explores how these emerging cybersurveillance technologies risk the potential for bulk biometric metadata collection. Such collection is likely to fall outside the scope of the types of bulk metadata collection protections regulated by the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015. The USA FREEDOM Act was intended to bring the practice of bulk telephony metadata collection conducted by the National Security Agency (“NSA”) under tighter regulation. In …

Blood On Their Hands: What Minnesota Authorities Can Do With Broad Warrants For Blood Draw Testing—State V. Fawcett, Matthew Porter

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Hill, Nazariy Gavrysh

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States V. Ammons, Rebecca Ruffer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Terry Stops And Frisks: The Troubling Use Of Common Sense In A World Of Empirical Data, David A. Harris, David Rudovsky

Articles

The investigative detention doctrine first announced in Terry v. Ohio and amplified over the past fifty years has been much analyzed, praised, and criticized from a number of perspectives. Significantly, however, over this time period commentators have only occasionally questioned the Supreme Court’s “common sense” judgments regarding the factors sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion for stops and frisks. For years, the Court has provided no empirical basis for its judgments, due in large part to the lack of reliable data. Now, with the emergence of comprehensive data on these police practices, much can be learned about the predictive power of …

Katz V. United States: Back To The Future?, Michael Vitiello

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Courts Fail To Protect Privacy: Race, Age, Bias, And Technology, Christopher Robertson, Bernard Chao, Ian Farrell, Catherine Durso

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable “searches and seizures,” but in the digital age of stingray devices and IP tracking, what constitutes a search or seizure? The Supreme Court has held that the threshold question is supposed to depend on and reflect the “reasonable expectations” of ordinary members of the public concerning their own privacy. For example, the police now exploit the “third party” doctrine to access data held by email and cell phone providers, without securing a warrant, on the Supreme Court’s intuition that the public has no expectation of privacy in that information. Is that assumption correct? If …

Police Ignorance And Mistake Of Law Under The Fourth Amendment, Eang L. Ngov

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Terry Stops And Frisks: The Troubling Use Of Common Sense In A World Of Empirical Data, David Rudovsky, David A. Harris

All Faculty Scholarship

The investigative detention doctrine first announced in Terry v. Ohio and amplified over the past fifty years has been much analyzed, praised, and criticized from a number of perspectives. Significantly, however, over this time period commentators have only occasionally questioned the Supreme Court’s “common sense” judgments regarding the factors sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion for stops and frisks. For years, the Court has provided no empirical basis for its judgments, due in large part to the lack of reliable data. Now, with the emergence of comprehensive data on these police practices, much can be learned about the predictive power of …

Byrd V United States: Unauthorized Drivers Of Rental Cars Have Fourth Amendment Rights? Not As Evident As It Seems, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

No discerning student of the Supreme Court would contend that Justice Anthony Kennedy broadly interpreted the Fourth Amendment during his thirty years on the Court. His majority opinions in Maryland v. King, Drayton v. United States and his willingness to join the three key sections of Justice Scalia’s opinion in Hudson v. Maryland, which held that suppression is never a remedy for knock-and-announce violations, are just a few examples of Justice Kennedy’s narrow view of the Fourth Amendment. In light of his previous votes in search and seizure cases, surprisingly Justice Kennedy, in what would be his final Fourth Amendment …

Game Of Drones: Rolling The Dice With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles And Privacy, Rebecca L. Scharf

Scholarly Works

This Article offers a practical three-part test for courts and law enforcement to utilize when faced with drone and privacy issues. Specifically addressing the question: how should courts analyze the Fourth Amendment’s protection against ‘unreasonable searches’ in the context of drones?

The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence produced an intricate framework to address issues arising out of the intersection of technology and privacy interests. In prominent decisions, including United States v. Katz, California v. Ciraolo, Kyllo v. United States, and most notably, United States v. Jones, the Court focused on whether the use of a single …